Big Kahuna: Week 1

I know weekly re-caps of workouts can be boring BUT for me they are essential for three reasons: (1) to keep myself accountable for what I set out to do, (2) when the training cycle is over I like to be able to look back at all the training I did for the event, and (3) they help me plan my next training cycle because I can see what works, what didn't work, etc.

That being said, week 1 went really well.  I am still not 100% with my back injury and I still don't have a clear answer is to what it is.  I see a physical therapist twice a week and they are still working on things.  All I can hope is that someday even if they can't determine the exact cause they can help me find a way to manage it so it doesn't happen again.  In the meantime I have the green light to start running again, abet slowly, but I am running and for that I am thankful.

So here is what was on the schedule:

and here is what I actually did:

Monday

Planned: Swim 2175 yards
Actual: Swam 2175 yards 

First time back in the pool since this happened (an onion chopping incident):

Your lucky I saved you from the actual picture of the stitches in my finger. :) 

Tuesday

Planned: Swim 2000 yards
Actual: Swam 2000 yards

Another great swim.  Kevin came with me to the pool and I had fun swimming laps around him - finally, one thing I am better at!!  Just kidding, after a little work on his form he was keeping up.  I will have him doing tris in no time. 

Planned: Run 2 miles
Actual: Ran 2 miles

This was my first run in over a month.  I was giddy I was so happy to go run.  It was slow - I mean really slow.  I was told to ease back into running through run/walk which is frustrating but it really did help with the pain.  I ran 1 minute/walked 2 minutes for the two miles on the treadmill.

2 miles/29:00/14:17 pace

Wednesday

Planned: Run 3 miles
Actual: None 

I dealt with this all day:

My poor car.  I went with Kevin to San Jose for the day and right after lunch the car stopped running - nevermind it is 12 years old with 225,000 miles but it can't die just yet.  It gets phenomenal gas mileage and until I get a job we need it.  It ended up being a 5 hour ordeal getting it towed, diagnosed, etc and by the time we got home I was just too tired too run.  (I also do not want to talk about how much it is going to cost to fix.)

Thursday

Planned: Ride 25 miles
Actual: Rode 20 miles

When I put these "25 mile" rides on the schedule I really should have put "20-30 mile" rides as I would be happy with any mileage within this range.  Unlike running which is usually pretty easy to get an exact distance, cycling is sometimes a little harder to get spot on.  Sometimes a planned route ends up being a little short or I will do less miles if it is a challenging route.

20.20 miles/1:39:52/12.5 avg pace

Friday

Planned: Ride 25 miles
Actual: Rode 23 miles

Again, I was totally happy with this mileage.

23 miles/1:47:43/13.2 avg speed

Planned: Swim 2100 yards
Actual: Ran 2 miles

I was supposed to do my long swim today but realized the pool did not have evening lap swim hours so I decided to try and make up Wednesdays missed run.  I forgot an ingredient for dinner so I ran to the store to get it adhering to the walk 2 minutes, run 1.  It wasn't quite the 3 miles I missed but better than nothing I guess.

2 miles/24:00/12:00 pace

Saturday

Planned: Ride 30 miles
Actual: None

Kevin and I had the best intentions to get this ride in.  When we moved from Sacramento we went from a house to an apartment so the majority of stuff we are storing right now until we get a bigger place.  We spent the majority of the day moving our stuff from where were storing it to a new place.  Of course, this took longer than expected and by the time we were done it was 7:00 and we had dinner plans with his parents.  If I was going to miss any "long" training day this would have been the one.  I think my bike fitness is strong right now and I don't think one missed ride will hurt me in the long run.

Sunday

Planned: Run 4 miles
Actual: Ran 4 miles

The lovely Aron planned a blogger meet-up for some bay area bloggers so I got some company on my "long" run.  It was so nice to see some old friends and meet lots of new ones!  I wish I could have talked to everyone more.  Tara was nice enough to stick with me for my four miles and do walk/run intervals of running 2 minutes/walking 2 minutes.  The time just flew by!  Thanks so much Tara.  I was prepared to do the run alone since I would be walking so it was nice to have the company.

Afterwards we all grabbed coffee at Peets and discussed all things running!

4 miles/46:26/11:24 avg pace

Weekly Totals

Swim: 4175 yards

Bike: 43 miles

Run: 9 miles

Not too far off from what I planned and a great week overall.  The one thing I know for the future is that I will not always be getting my workouts done on the day planned but as long as they get done that is all that matters.

It feels great to be back up and at it.  I still have some back aches and pains and my shins were usually sore after Sundays run but I am attributing that to being out of "running" shape.  I hope if I just stick with my stretches and exercises from the PT I will be okay. 

Looking forward to week 2!